Our new downtown Las Cruces clinic at 130 S. Main now features an assortment of “Fair Trade” products: books, weavings, gift cards and pinatas. A portion of proceeds form these sales goes towards our project for underserved communities in the border region.

What is Fair Trade?

Crossroads Community Acupuncture actively engages in fair trade business partnerships with the goal to create greater equity and better conditions for workers. Simply put, Fair Trade is an economic system that endeavors to pay workers a just wage for their labor. This often happens by taking out the “middleman” and establishing a more direct relationship between producer and consumer. It also happens when consumers recognize that most of the products that they are used to buying come at artificially low prices that do not reflect the true environmental or labor costs needed to produce them. Fair Trade products may be anything from agricultural to crafts, and in the case of what we offer at Crossroads, includes piñatas, books, and weavings. Here’s more about each of the products we sell:

Prayer Flags

Strolling down South Main street on a Saturday morning in Downtown Cruces, a tent draped and covered with bright and bold Prayer Flags waving in the wind will catch your eye as you pass by our clinic at 130 S. Main. These flags are our most recent addition to Crossroads’ Fair Trade products. Flags are sold for $15 and are great as gifts for kids and adults, or can be used to decorate your home or office. Made by community workers along the border in Anapra, Mexico, the flags feature a variety of different designs available. Symbols on the various flags include the Virgin Mary, Namaste, the I Ching symbols, a movement for peace in Juarez, Mexico Amor por Juarez, Crossroads Acupuncture’s symbol and many more. Inspirational quotes are found on many of the flag designs, as well. Learn more about this project.

Weavings

Weavings for Justice is a volunteer-based, non-profit organization that works in solidarity with Mayan women’s weaving cooperatives in highland Chiapas, Mexico. The organization aims to assist women weavers to continue to live on their ancestral lands in sustainable ways that respects the land, their language, and their traditions. Crossroads carries various hand-woven items including purses, handbags, and wallets at our Downtown clinic. Learn more about Weavings for Justice.

Coffee

Almost all coffee on this planet is produced in the tropical “third world”, but the great majority of coffee is consumed in the United States and Europe. 90% of profits in the coffee industry remain in the “first world”, while a meager 10% go back to the countries where it was produced to be distributed between the local middle men, the growers and the pickers.

This year, in Nicaragua, the cost of picking the coffee is over half the price being offered by the coffee buyers. Because the price is so low, (right now, international coffee prices are below the cost of production) farmers are losing their farms, their livelihoods, but somehow there are record profits in the coffee industry?

Crossroads is proud to be part of the solution. We’re selling coffee from small farmers in Nicaragua so they get their fair share, to support a social business called Cinco Toucanes. Learn more…

Crossroads now sells an assortment of beautiful, hand-woven purses, handbags, and wallets. They are fair trade products (learn more about Crossroads’ Fair Trade project), made Maya women’s weaving cooperatives in Chiapas, Mexico, through a non profit organization, Weaving for Justice.

Weaving for Justice is a volunteer organization that works in solidarity with three Maya women’s weaving cooperatives in highland Chiapas, Mexico. The organization’s goal is to assist women weavers in cooperatives so they can continue to live on their ancestral lands in sustainable ways that respect their culture, language, and traditions. Weaving for Justice helps the weavers find ways to market their products through fair trade venues in the United States, including Crossroads Community Acupuncture, and works to inform the public about threats to women’s cooperative efforts and human rights in Mexico. We also connect weaving cooperatives in Chiapas with women’s artisan groups along the U.S./Mexico border. A percentage of these sales will benefit the Crossroads Border Project.

Crossroads carries various hand-woven items including purses, handbags, and wallets available for sale at our Downtown clinic, 130 S. Main. These are great gifts!

Flags are sold at Crossroads 130 S. Main for $15 and can be purchased at the Las Cruces Farmer’s Market 8:30-12 every Saturday (just outside our door!), alongside an assortment of Fair Trade products from Mexico.

Also, you can purchase these items at our clinic during business hours at 130 S. Main (entrance off of Water Street) on these days:

The creation of this new product by Juarez artisans–who call them Guerilla Prayer Flags— come from the tradition of Tibetan prayer flags, which are displayed in many cultures around the world to promote peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. Guerilla Prayer Flags, made out of used clothing by community workers along the border in Anapra, Mexico, have a variety of different designs. Symbols on the various flags include the Virgin Mary, Namaste, the I Ching symbols, a movement for peace in Juarez, Mexico Amor por Juarez, Crossroads Community Acupuncture’s symbol and many more. Inspirational quotes are found on many of the flag designs, as well.

More about Inspired Imports

This particular project is run by the La Union-based small business “Inspired Imports,” run by Siba and Rosario Escobeda. (Watch a short film on this project.) They have two lines of Fair Trade items: Rags to Britches & Guerilla Prayer Flags. Both are projects of love and hope that are transforming the lives of 4 Juarez families, and creating some beautiful things along the way. Juarez, MX is one of the world’s bloodiest urban war-zones, right in our own backyard (just an hour away from Las Cruces). The most devastating toll is being taken on innocent families caught in the crossfire.

But Rags to Britches & Guerilla Prayer Flags are not providing a mere hand-out: we seek hard-working, resourceful, deserving women to fulfill a market niche for what the project’s co-founder Rosario Escobedo saw as a lack of “unique clothing that you can actually feel good about buying”—that means no sweatshops and little environmental impact with use of recycled fabrics.

Inspired Imports’ latest project, Guerilla Prayer Flags, is an effort to provide further economic and moral support to Juarez. Our spin on the colorful Tibetan prayer flag tradition are created from hand-dyed, hand-stamped recycled t-shirts, with messages to appeal to almost anyone who wants to add some color and spirit to their home, yoga studio, or yard. These bright garlands of waving color signify the release and manifestation of your intent into the universe as they dance and disintegrate in the wind.

Come check out Juarez’s latest blooming and see if this expression of global and personal transformation speaks to you. Specialized orders may be made to have your own design or quote or saying or expression of peace on your individualized prayer flag.

Crossroads thanks Siba and Rosario Escobeda for spearheading this project. They volunteer for Crossroads every week to get the word out about our Fair Trade table. Come meet Siba and Rosario the next time you’re down at the Farmer’s Market!

Stress, anxiety, hectic and fast-paced living often creates the need to self-medicate in order to feel calm, relaxed and in control of a seemingly out of control life. The constant need to soothe the mind can lead to over indulging and the chronic use of alcohol, drugs, tobacco, food, sex, television, video games and more. There are ways to soothe the mind and reduce feelings of stress without turning to self medication, or prescription medication. Ear acupuncture is a proven method for various conditions, including the prevention of addictions and recovery from addictions. For more information about how ear acupuncture can work for you, contact Mateo at 541-5660.

Why do ear acu in groups? What is the NADA protocol?

Good questions. Like our community clinic in Las Cruces, Crossroads staff also provide treatments in a group setting, provided on a sliding scale. Here’s some resources we’ve gathered to help you understand more about this specific technique:

“Along with all the benefits, the environment and professionalism of the staff highly exceeds anything I have ever experienced in a medical facility. I highly recommend even the mildest of treatments for veterans! We need this to go “viral” within the veteran’s community! Thank you, I look forward to many years of hiking thanks to you!” -Fred

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CONTACT INFO

NEW LOCATION STARTING 2/27

AS OF 2/27/17, NEW LOCATION:
1320 S. Solano
Corner of Idaho and Solano
Within Families and Youth, INC (FYI)
If you get lost trying to find us at our new location at FYI, call 575-522-4004

When you enter our space at FYI there will be a large waiting area serving other programs as well. Just let the receptionist know you are here for acupuncture, and they will check you in, and let me know you are here, after which I'll come walk you back to our beautiful new treatment space.